Facing the store exit, I was left dumbfounded. While I couldn’t read her expression to confirm, I was sure that it wasn’t any surprise to the girl standing next to me. 

“It’s raining...” 

Against the window, there were droplets of rain continuously pounding. To top it all, the other side of the road in front of the store could barely be seen. Being dressed in a plain t-shirt and shorts, there was no doubt that if I decided to leave, I would suffer all the way back home and likely end up with a cold. 

The girl by my side—whose outfit I had to admit that I found weird at first—certainly was lucky. Perhaps, unlike an idiot that was me, she had checked the forecast beforehand and prepared herself accordingly, taking into account her peculiarities. 

What was I going to do now? I could leave into that rain, but like I said before, I would end up suffering. As such, I’d better wait inside... but for how long? I was quite far away from home, so it would take me about thirty minutes to get there without anything slowing me down. The chances I would end up unscathed were poor. 

As for the girl next to me, I didn’t intend to hold her back since she had been dressed properly. Too bad that we had to part in such circumstances, but there was no helping it. 

Or so I’d thought, but a proud voice suddenly resounded from that girl. 

“Worry not, human. Behold.” 

I moved my gaze from the rain outside to her figure, and soon after, I had been utterly flabbergasted. 

With a prominent move, she pulled out a yellow item from inside her black coat. Simultaneously with it automatically unfolding, I opened my mouth wide in surprise. 

It was... a raincoat. 

“...?!” 

From her black coat, she pulled out something of a similar size as it itself. Actually, it shouldn’t have been that difficult to shove it inside since it was easily foldable, but what surprised me in general was the fact that she had brought it with herself. Certainly, she didn’t need it; had she brought it especially for me? 

Confused, I took it from her and quickly put it on with a single move. It certainly was a yellow raincoat; naturally, it had a hood. With it protecting me from both wind and rain, I was now able to reach home mostly unscathed. 

“Thank you...?” 

Evidently, she had known that it was going to rain from the beginning—hence, in case I hadn’t brought proper clothes, she had a raincoat prepared for me instead. I couldn’t help but be amazed how thoughtful she was... 

“Did you know it was going to rain?” 

“Kuku, not necessarily. I am always prepared for every occurrence”, she responded as she raised a hand to make a gesture covering her masked face. I was quite sure that there was a smug on her face right now. 

Yeah, somehow, I couldn’t believe that. On the other hand, I couldn’t hear the smallest irregularity in her voice, which would have showed up if she had felt embarrassment. 

Either way, if it hadn’t been for her, I would have had to wait inside for who knows how long, and possibly still don’t end up unscathed. 

“Fufu, but we are certainly lucky. In thunder, my powers rise exceedingly.” 

“Haha... but I don’t have any powers, so I don’t think I’m lucky...” 

With that said, I put the hood of the yellow raincoat on, which honestly made me feel that I looked even more weird than her—being dressed in full black felt a bit more natural than full yellow, although since it was raining, I didn’t care about it. Well, I guess that nobody would pay attention to her outfit anymore now that it was raining. 

Before I knew it, the girl had fastened a few buttons on her coat, transforming it into a robe. Her blonde braids of hair were nowhere to be seen, likely because she had somehow hidden them inside. Her hands were hidden under it in a similar way. 

It was most likely to protect her from the rain, but together it improved her disguise. Basically, with her hair barely visible under the hood, face hidden behind the mask, and nothing but black robe hanging down, there was no way one could confirm her identity even standing right in front of her. 

“Shall we proceed?” a muffled sound came out from her mask. 

“Okay.” 

One more word about her suit; at that moment, I noticed that she couldn’t use her hands that way. It was rather inconvenient, and as such, I was the only person able to open the door leading to the outside shrouded in rain. 

“...” 

Merely a few steps outside, I could already express my stance about it. The temperature itself—it was perfect. It was the same kind of warm as in the evening, which I really enjoyed. Thanks to the raincoat and light clothing under it, the rain didn’t prove to be as annoying as I had expected, and so, I could only complain about the wind, which could have been a bit weaker. Overall, it wasn’t that bad—I could take my way home easy. 

“Err... you said it once, that you like rain?” 

I spoke out randomly to the girl by my side. I’ve said it many times already, but I felt strange with her completely disguised like that. Apart from her voice, there was no way I could tell how she had been feeling right now. Was she on the verge of crying, or was she happy like never before? 

That’s why, for some reason, I wanted to get to hear her voice more often. 

“Naturally. When it rains, I feel a surge of power. Moreover, the amount of humans scattered around, which are the greatest annoyance, decreases accordingly.” 

Not that I wasn’t expecting that, but the tone of her voice wasn’t abnormal. About the latter part, I had already noticed that there weren’t much people on the street besides us. Honestly, I didn’t dislike it as well. At least I had to admit that it somewhat boosted my confidence in talking to her. 

“I see... Certainly, it’s become deserted around us.” 

“It’s similar to the night, although rainy days are objectively better, for in case you happen to chance upon a human, they tend to take note of you less often.” 

If I got it right, she was saying that the absence of other people on rainy days could be compared to the night, but if you happened to come across someone, they didn’t pay attention to you as much as they did in the night. It was understandable—in the rain, people were busy minding their own business, whereas in the night, they often took note of you as it was rather unseen to casually walk around the streets then. 

But... why she was concerned about that? It wasn’t like I could walk outside in the night, because I was a little bit afraid not only of the possibility of people that you’d rather not meet being around, but also of my parents being awake and scolding me. 

“Alright, so basically, you don’t like when there are other people around?” 

“If that’s the way your human brain interprets it. Henceforth, I choose to leave my base when human activity is at its lowest.” 

That might have been why we met up at such an unusual time. To tell the truth, it wasn’t like I liked when there were many people around. That said, I guess nobody did. I definitely would’ve felt more embarrassed right now had people been passing us by more often, but we hardly encountered anyone ever since we left the store. 

As we walked upon the damp sidewalk, the rain started giving some signs of slowly giving up, but they might have as well been deceitful. Turning my head around heedlessly, I didn’t notice a single person following in our steps. In the same vein, there was no one approaching us from up front. 

It didn’t mean that we were alone on the street, though. Despite the heavy rain, the road next to us was still quite busy. That said, I don’t think the drivers had time to look at us—they had to pay close attention to the road, on which the visibility was obstructed. 

“Lumiya-san, I was wondering, why have you disguised yourself?” I decided to ask the girl a question. 

From the beginning, it quite didn’t make sense to me. She hadn’t told me that she was going to come camouflaged, so how did she expect me to recognize her? 

“I have no reason to disguise myself per se; I’ve done this for your sake, human. I know well that being seen with me may bring you trouble. Worry not, it could be said that it’s a built-in feature of this suit, and therefore it doesn’t inconvenience me in the slightest.” 

“Err... so does it mean that you always dress in this way?” 

I had never seen her outside school, where she naturally had always properly worn the school uniform. Knowing her a little, I wouldn’t be surprised that much if it turned out that she actually went outside dressed like that. By the way, what was her parents’ stance on that? 

“Huh... I see, this is the first time you’re seeing me outside the confinement facility. That’s right, as there are numerous dangers lurking in the shadows at all times in this world, each time I embark on an expedition, I have to wear a proper set of clothes. To your human eye, they may appear unremarkable—that's the intended effect—but I’ll let you on a secret. Their real value is immense, as it is impossible to find a similar cloth in this world.” 

No matter how you looked at it, while her clothes didn’t appear to be of an excessive value like she said, they were conspicuous. 

“Fufu, this attire has more advantages than you could ever think of, human. It can adapt to a wide range of temperatures and provides increased protection from wind, rain, storm or thunder. Therefore, the exact same suit is appropriate for all four seasons of the year. Even if, at this exact moment, I found myself in a very cold place, I would be able to stand there without feeling the slightest bit of discomfort for an ample amount of time. The same thing can be said about the other way around. While there do exist more complete versions of this suit, they do begin to cause inconvenience.” 

The girl walking next to me got absorbed in explaining her outfit to me. I just hoped that she wouldn’t try to walk during a thunderstorm, thinking that her clothes would protect her from being struck by lightning, but she wasn’t that dumb... probably. 

“That said, you might be wondering why I don’t wear this suit in the confinement facility. The rules may forbid it, but this proves no problem to me, kuku. My body, even without any external protection, is more resistant than an average human’s one. It has no trouble dealing with moderate rain, wind and warm temperatures. Nevertheless, if there was no risk of revelation of my real personality, I’d wear this suit at all times.” 

She continued to avidly describe her attire to me. Walking by her side, I listened to her carefully, even though I knew well that was she was saying was nothing but a product of her imagination. To be fair, I found it fairy interesting, notwithstanding the fact that I hardly could think of any response to that. As she seemed to be finished with her lengthy explanation, I decided to voice my opinion concerning that. 

“This attire of yours sure is convenient. I wouldn’t mind if I had a similar one...” 

“Fufu, right? Unfortunately, as a mere human, you're unsuitable to wear it. Most of its features simply wouldn’t work on you. That is, if you somehow managed to obtain one in the first place.” 

“Yeah, that’s a shame...” 

I might have been wrong, but I doubt I had seen her more cheerful before. I mean, I was judging from the tone of her voice alone, and perhaps a bit from her pace, which she had picked up, such that she seemed to be on the verge of skipping. 

Did that outfit mean to her that much? 

All of a sudden, the girl walking next to me had pulled ahead of me. Leaving me confounded, she actually started skipping down the walkway. 

Everything she seemed to fancy was occurring simultaneously: heavy rain, no other people in the vicinity, her being dressed freely in her favorite outfit, the nightfall gradually drawing near. Come to think of it, it was only reasonable for her to be happy. 

Before I knew it, we had already deviated from the main road, and found ourselves on a side alley, where no signs of life could be seen whatsoever. On the other hand, it meant that we were going to part soon. For some reason, I didn’t want it to end yet. 

“But... fufu, when I’m wearing this outfit, I’m invincible! Behold, human. No weather can surprise me. Inside, there is everything I need to survive”, she exclaimed, with her voice excited like never before. Surely, she did resemble a child that way. 

Unexpectedly, being in front of me, she turned around and approached me directly, startling me and bringing my stroll to a stop. Her figure, disguised entirely without leaving the slightest part of her body exposed, now stood right in front of me. 

It was still raining, but the yellow raincoat she had given to me provided enough protection from it. We, two figures, stood in the middle of the road, surrounded only by houses belonging to people we didn’t know. Her clothes were black, and mine were yellow. There was no other living person in sight but her, whose figure, thanks to her face being covered, gave off a feeling that it belonged to a person neither alive nor lifeless. 

In other words, to say that this situation intimidated me would be an understatement. 

“Look! My hands are hidden under this coat, yet under this mask, dwells a tremendous power. Without the eyepatch on, I can call upon it at ease. There is only one thought away from me ending your life. Aren’t you scared, human?” 

Of course, there was no truth in what she was saying. In spite of that, I wouldn’t have felt any different even if this power of hers had been real. Her voice, brimming with enthusiasm, was the major source of my anxiety at this moment. It leaked from the gas mask covering the face of the girl that was directly facing me. Her eyes, which appeared to me only as two black eyeholes, surely were fixed on my face, which was filled with confusion and unease. 

“I... am scared.” 

Was I telling the truth? I wasn’t scared because I was afraid of her self-proclaimed power. It was solely anxiety and timidity, caused by my own, groundless apprehensiveness. 

“Fufu, you’re lying”, a voice leaked out from the figure in front of me. Not even the slightest movement accompanied that, which was a little bit unsettling for me. 

“N-no... I’m not lying...” 

That wasn’t exactly wrong. I was scared, but not in the way she meant to scare me. 

“Human, I can see through you. What is the truth?” 

She could see through me? I didn’t know what to think about it, but I was quite sure that at this moment, there was pure uneasiness written all over my face, so if she didn’t consider it as me being scared, she was talking about the other emotion I felt towards her. 

The other emotion, a rather positive one—yes, there was something like that. To be honest, I wanted to say it some time ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to. Was it my chance to do that? I was still afraid of saying that, but... 

“I-I think that... it’s cute...” 

Quietly, although I said it. 

“...” 

The figure in front of me remained without any movement for a longer while. There was no voice coming from her—there was no way whatsoever I could confirm how did my words affect her. 

Suddenly, she turned around and started walking. As she did that, a small voice came from her: 

“you’re interesting, human...” 

As such, I proceeded to follow her hesitantly. There still was some time before we would part on an intersection. 

“But the one interesting is you...” uneasily, I said under my breath as to make a meaningless comment. 

“There is nothing interesting in me.” 

I wasn’t expecting her to respond—I thought I said it quietly, and there was some distance between us with her on the front. For that reason, when I heard her voice, I got startled. Unexpectedly, I felt the level of courage in me raising slightly. As such, I decided to prove her sentence wrong: 

“No, Lumiy—” 

“You think that I’m weird, don’t you, human?” she stopped me mid-sentence with a question, all in a dejected voice, without turning around. 

Was she weird? Well, I guess that’s how most people would call her peculiarities. No matter how you looked at it, she was different from others, pretending that she was, as I learned earlier that day, an alien. Aside from the certainly remarkable manner she was currently dressed in, she always had a black eyepatch on her left eye. Most people didn’t cover their eyes just because of a quirk, did they? 

In the end, she was peculiar. I didn’t know what were her reasons for being like that, but it might have been the reason why she hadn’t made any friends after she transferred here. 

“That’s right, you’re strange. But... that doesn’t change the fact that... I don’t care. You might be a weirdo, but I don’t care. What’s more... personally, I don’t dislike it. No, I even like it.” 

Saying that took me so much courage that I inadvertently stopped. Surprisingly, she did the same at the exact same moment as me without even turning around. 

“I thought that I was the least interesting person in school... yet someone like you, a being with powers easily overwhelming mere humans… and an alien to boot, expressed some interest in me”, I continued. 

When I finished, her face, which disappointingly I could not read because of the mask I still hadn’t gotten used to seeing, turned to face me along with the rest of her body. 

Again, she was clad all in black. 

She proceeded to hesitantly take a step forward, and then another one. It took her some time to close the distance between us in that way. After that, I heard a faint muffled voice leaking from under her mask: 

“Are you telling the truth?” 

“Y-yes, I swear it’s true.“ 

“I see.” 

I thought that “I see” was reserved for me—I think it was my first time hearing her saying that. After that, she turned around and started walking again, this time at a normal pace that I could catch up with. 

“So... Lumiya-san.” 

We reached the intersection where we were supposed to part at. It was a different intersection from the one before school, because this one was in the opposite direction. I could figure that she was going to take the right turn, because I had already seen a part of her way home from school the other day, and was sure that it would be most likely inconvenient for her to take the left turn, which was the one I was going to pick. 

“...” there was a muffling sound of mumbling coming from her, likely meaning that she was ready to listen to me. 

“Er... the next time we meet, that is, but...” 

I was going to ask her for something. I wasn’t sure if she would accept, but it wasn’t not like I would care much if she didn’t. 

“Could you take off that mask?” 

That’s right—I asked her for that because I found it somewhat intimidating for me. I was aware that it was making her more confident when she was with me, which effects of I could even see earlier, but... 

“Worry not, human. It does not inconvenience me.” 

“No, no, it’s not about that. It’s because... I would rather be able to see your face...” 

At the moment I said that, for the first time today I felt that I genuinely made her uneasy—in a way, I managed to break through the barrier created by her outfit and her mask. Not only did she suddenly stop, but I could also see her body slightly quivering. 

“B-but... why would you want to see my face. It’s not a necessity” 

I quite didn’t know what she was talking about. I was expecting her to make an excuse based on her beliefs, but that was... as if her human side was leaking out. 

That said, her words left me unable to respond in a satisfying way. I didn’t have enough courage to say what I really wanted. 

“I-I don’t mind”, so I tried to convey it in a less direct way, “A-ah, and I don’t mind your attire. You can leave it on, even the cat ear hoodie. I mean just the mask on your face.” 

“I-I understand. I will try to find something to substitute the mask.” 

Both of us were stuttering. While I felt excessive embarrassment all over my body, I found this little fact funny. 

“Now then, till we meet again, human...” 

Ah, that’s right. We’d reached the intersection already. After she said that in a hurried manner, she proceeded to walk away from me. 

As I looked at her black figure growing smaller in the distance, it left me wondering... when would I be able to see it again? 

Embarrassed, I found myself unable to move. Before I knew it, her figure disappeared, and along with it, the rain stopped. Perhaps it really was she who caused it? 

And so, I finally turned around and started walking down the street towards my house. Obviously, I had the yellow raincoat still on, which meant that I would have to return it to her the next time we met at school. 

However, at that moment I realized that my hand was holding onto something quite heavy. It was the bag of books we bought—or rather, she bought because only one of them belonged to me. As it turned out, there was one more item I had to return later. 

It wasn’t a bad day. In fact, I wouldn’t mind repeating it again. But... it wasn’t going to happen, was it?